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Chester Labour MP Chris Matheson has outlined why he supports a second referendum or so-called People’s Vote on Brexit in a high profile article in The Guardian.

The staunch remainer argues the real agenda of right-wing Brexiteers is to align the UK with American capitalism free of EU protections to workers, consumers or the environment.

Left wing Brexiteers, in the tradition of the late Tony Benn, were ‘out of touch’.

Mr Matheson, a Hoole resident and former Unite trade union official, wrote: “ I recall the dark days of Thatcherism when it was often only European law that prevented deeper Tory attacks on environmental and workplace protection, and that was before my colleague Jack Dromey, then a union official, led the Bournemouth bin workers to a famous victory to protect their terms and conditions when facing privatisation, a victory only possible because of European law.

Chester MP Chris Matheson posed for a photo with Chester For Europe campaigners arguing in favour of a second referendum on the terms of any Brexit deal.

“But even since then the world has moved on, and however damaging globalisation has been, it can now only be tackled on a global scale. Britain standing alone cannot face down the forces of global capitalism. And the Brexiteers know this, which is why they are doing what they are," continued Mr Matheson, who has a degree in politics and economics from the London School of Economics.

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“For these Brexit extremists, this project is about aligning the UK with the Trumpist US. The Trumpeteers and the Brexiteers are the same people, on different sides of the Atlantic. Whether from the Ukip tendency of Nigel Farage and Arron Banks, or the Conservative strand of Michael Gove, Liam Fox or David Davis (the latest senior Tory to visit at the behest of that shady nexus of so-called thinktanks linked across the Atlantic), the aim is the same.

President Donald Trump (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“They want to take the UK out of the EU and join us instead to the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) or the Pacific Alliance, offering free trade with these countries but none of the environmental, labour or consumer protection offered by the EU.”

But there are concerns that if the Remainers won a second referendum, it would leave almost half the electorate feeling robbed of the choice they took in June 2016. And there are real fears the racist right would be best placed to exploit the resulting bitterness.

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Tackling this point, Mr Matheson, shadow minister for the Cabinet Office in Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench team, comments: “Some fellow MPs are fearful of the social chaos a further referendum may bring about. Well, that chaos was already unleashed in 2016. The far right is already a threat and will feel more empowered post-Brexit. That is a fight we will have to have anyway, as John McDonnell has identified. And we never defeated the far right before by ceding ground and saying, ‘Oh, go on then’.

Chester MP Chris Matheson supports a second referendum on the final EU Brexit deal.

“If Brexit was wrong in June 2016, then it is wrong in January 2019, just with more proof. But more than that, it is the generational opportunity the right in the UK has seized to stage what is in effect a rightwing coup: to finally remove all vestiges of the postwar liberal consensus, and paint on the remaining blank canvas the bleakest, nastiest picture of the UK possible.

“Those of us on the left still have the chance to stop this hard rightwing coup. But we need to look forward, not back, and we must be as bold in stating our values of fairness, decency and internationalism as the right has been in forcing through their bleak and divisive agenda. And above all we must be bold enough to call Brexit out for what it is, and to fight to stop it.